The Italian writer and historian, Mr. Andrea Frediani, wrote a historical novel called “Survival”. This is a work dealing with the events that followed the assassination of the Divine Julius Caesar, during the next seventeen months from this event.
The book is enjoyable to read as it is fast paced and fast paced. On the pages of the novel, the reader learns about the extremely dynamic process of forming and breaking alliances after the tragic death of the greatest of Roman commanders. The actions of Octavian, the adopted son of the Divine Julius, and his struggle to regain his rights and rule over the Roman world, are the main axis of the story. The author’s attitude is definitely procesarian. It is, in my opinion, duly supported by well-chosen arguments that have a solid basis in historical sources. Intellectual shallowness and the resulting political ineptitude of selfish republican circles were shown in all their glory. The assessment of Cicero that the reader will find in this book is, in my opinion, accurate.
Mr. Frediani’s descriptions of battles are not the best. This shortcoming of the novel in question is effectively compensated by very good descriptions of interpersonal relationships (including those between men and women) and the intellectual climate of those turbulent times in which the fate of the entire Roman world hung in the balance.
It is a pity that subsequent volumes of this story, well based on historical sources, are published only in the original language.
